Of Karma, Cass and Mary’s Records

By David Perry

The lifeblood of the record store is used vinyl. Buy it in bulk. Trade for it. Every now and then, some kind soul donates it. Just walks in and gives it to you.

The Great Vinyl Revival that began just shy of 20 years ago has hatched new generations of collectors and revived older ones. There is a steady appetite for pressings of new releases but the real boom is the pre-owned market. Combine that with increasingly expensive and physically flawed new releases and re-pressings — warps, grooves cut off center and even complete dropouts of sound – customers seek out early pressings in the used bins. The closer the source the better, whatever the cost. As with all collectors, we record people are a strange, obsessive bunch.

So when you get a call from Connecticut to look over Mary Travers’ collection, you wonder, what is in there?

My record store of just over 10 years, Vinyl Destination, was a firm believer in vinyl karma, a law that put the right records in the right hands. And I wondered, what put these in ours?

I also believe record collections – like batches of books or coins or cars – say something about their owner. What you chose, what you saved rather than sold, what you listen to, it all matters. And sometimes a collection has a certain DNA that offers a tidbit you never knew.

It turns out Travers, the Mary of Peter Paul & Mary, had a few of those. My favorite is a copy of The Big Three, the 1963 recorded debut of “Mama” Cass Elliot. It’s not the music the trio makes, but the inscription it carries. And for the life of me, I can’t find it among the several thousands of albums stacked up and down two floors of my home.

Mary Travers is best known as a third of Peter, Paul & Mary, who with their 1963 cover of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” smoothed out Bob Dylan for the masses.

Though she died in 2009, Mary is back in the public periphery in the film A Complete Unknown, the popular and acclaimed Bob Dylan biopic. There she is, uncredited but unmistakable, blond bangs, a top of horizontal stripes, a camera magnet, the group a presence on the folk-pop scene that ruled New York and Newport.

I knew her a bit back in the ‘80s, though it would be a stretch to call us “friends.” I was a reporter for The Redding Pilot, the weekly newspaper in the small Connecticut town where Mary lived in a beautiful 1730s farmhouse along the winding Limekiln Road. Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore writes in his memoir of his teen years in nearby Bethel, once crashing his family’s Ford wagon into the stone wall in front of her property.

Mary and I became friendly because 1) I was going to cover her as a resident, 2) I was probably going to want to talk to her anyway and 3) my wife, then establishing a housecleaning business had as one of her customers Virginia Coigney, an extraordinary woman whose past included activism, journalism and work with the Newspaper Guild. As it happened, she was Mary’s mother.

“You HAVE to meet this woman,” Wendy said.

So, we did, over a glass of wine at Mary’s house. It was great. Mary, like her mother,  was a gracious and at times hysterically funny host. We discovered we shared a birth date, Nov. 9. She was also professionally accommodating, once allowing me to tag along backstage as PP&M prepared to take the stage at Yale. That night, she did what she always did when reaching a crescendo of righteous anger, clenching her fists and shaking her head as she sang about El Salvador.

In 1986, I moved on from the weekly.

Years later, I was saddened to hear of her death. Leukemia.

In July 2021, I was surprised to hear from a high school acquaintance, who knew I was now running a record store. Mary’s husband and partner were going to clear out the guest house on the property. There were records. Did I want them?

The next day, I was driving to Redding, leaving I-84 in Newtown, winding back roads to Mary’s. All the while, I wondered, what could this collection contain? I imagined there would be Greenwich Village folkie stalwarts. But what else? I mean, she knew Dylan, as much as that was possible. Maybe advance copies of his seminal works? As with any call to pick up a collection, it was the promise of what could be that lured me.

I snapped back into reality and the surrounding beauty of Redding.

The stunning little town was celebrated in Charles Ives’ composition, “Three Places in New England” and it was a location for 1967’s Valley of the Dolls as well as the location for Christpher Walken’s real life for a bit. The photographer Edward Steichen lived there as did Leonard Bernstein. Daryl Hall was a resident in the ‘80s as was Meat Loaf, who passionately coached softball in the town. Keith Richards still lives in nearby Weston. The town’s library is named for Mark Twain, who lived in Redding from 1908 until his death two years later.

Redding is a perfect leafy hideaway, an easy trek to the thunderous heartbeat of New York.

I pulled into Mary’s driveway, greeted by her fourth husband, Ethan Robbins. He led me to the one-bedroom guest cottage, pointing to a few shelves of records.

“There they are,” he said. We chatted a bit. He pretended to remember me. I dug in. He was sure no one in the family wanted any of the records. He was going to toss them.

It was a humid day. I noticed a slight musty smell in the room, but it hadn’t affected the records. I looked around the cottage and spotted a framed photograph of a young Mary, taken (I believe) by her second husband, photographer Barry Feinstein. Some other art. The sound of workmen drifted in from the distance.

Some of the records were “well-loved,” with light scratches while others were pristine. Many were still sealed, especially about 50 Peter, Paul & Mary records, stock Mary would draw from to sell at appearances. A box of three 78’s, signed by the singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson, who I have read would on occasion sing Mary to sleep thanks to his closeness with her activist parents.

There were indeed dozens upon dozens of records from folkies of her time, from Malvina Reynolds (you know her commentary of suburban sameness, “Little Boxes,” as the theme for HBO’s Weeds) to Fred Neil, Tom Rush, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk and Joan Baez. Lots of blues, too, including Mississippi John Hurt’s essential Worried Blues. As with many of the records she signed her name on the back, marking her territory.

Impressively, she had a dozen albums by Nina Simone, whose interpretive power and nakedly emotional work has come to be embraced by more recent generations of fans.

There was also a promotional copy of Miles Davis jazz-funk foray, “On the Corner.” Dave Brubeck, who lived nearby in Wilton, CT signed an album to her.

Yes, there was an early Dylan record but without any sign of personal attachment.

Some of the records are signed to her from other artists. The most notable are albums from turtlenecked poet Rod McKuen and Mama Cass. I take them home.

McKuen was clearly fond in some way of Mary. In April 1972, he signed a copy of his Gran Tour Vol. 3 album to her: “Dear Mary – You can ignore all the songs on this album except band six, side one. It was written for you with love – Rod. The song is “My Mary.”

But now, as I write about it, Cass’s Big Three record remains elusive.

Most interesting are a series of acetates, most seemingly used to shop tunes for potential inclusion on a Mary Travers album. There is a pair of demos of songs by Brill building songwriters Barry Mann/Cynthia Weill, responsible for more hits than Al Capone.

Is that Barry Mann signing on them? Who knows.

Another mystery is the acetate from Regent Sound Studios in New York, a breezy, loving ditty to celebrate Mary’s birthday just shy of a half-century ago. The only clue is Nov. 9, 1975 printed on the label. Who is singing? A mystery. Is this the only copy? Could be.

There were about 400 LPs. I settled on a price with Ethan, loaded the car and put Redding in my rear view again.

I sold some of the records at the store but kept the bulk of the collection.

I closed Vinyl Destination in February 2024 to fully retire. Mary’s house sold nearly a year ago.

But the records are forever, frozen moments that document a time, a place, an approach to culture and politics and yes, they tell you something about a person.

What does it say about me that I cannot find The Big Three?

Postscript: Found it! In a row I had already scoured.

The Big Three was released in 1963, a year after Peter, Paul & Mary’s debut. The trio included Cass Elliot, Tim Rose and Jim Hendricks. It is inscribed from singer to singer, one hoping to match the other’s popularity. It feels like a yearbook signature.

“Dear Mary
Well, we did it
At last we have an album
God knows…
And here’s hoping
Love, love, love

Cassie”

She did just fine.

****

David Perry was a reporter for the Lowell Sun for 25 years, until 2010, when he worked for a decade as a writer at UMass Lowell. He ran Vinyl Destination from November 2013 to February 2024 in Mill No. 5. In 1992, he earned a Grammy nomination for his album notes to the Jack Kerouac Collection box set and in 2005, was named Journalist of The Year by the New England Press Association. He lives in North Chelmsford with his wife, Wendy, and 20,000 records.